Putin to chair meeting in Kuban over harvest results

The participants of the meeting will discuss topical issues of the agro-industrial complex

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MOSCOW, September 17 (Itar-Tass) - Russian President Vladimir Putin will go Tuesday on a working trip in Krasnodar Territory, where he will chair a meeting devoted to the results of the harvesting campaign and the prospects for development of the agrarian industry, the Kremlin press service reported.

“The participants of the meeting will discuss topical issues of the agro-industrial complex with the participation of officials from specific ministries and agencies, several chief executives of Russian constituent entities, major agrarian producers, financial institutions and related industries,” the Russian presidential press service said.

Putin will also visit the agrarian holding Kuban in the Ust-Labinsky district, will examine progress of harvesting campaign and will talk to combine operators.

Meanwhile, the Russian president will visit an exhibition of innovative agricultural machinery, which is engaged in the full cycle of agrarian works.

Krasnodar Territory is one of the main Russian regions, which ensure food security of the country. A total area of farmlands in Kuban makes more than 7.5 million hectares, including 3.9 million hectares of croplands. Grains, sugar beet, sunflower and corn are cultivated in northern and central parts of the region, rice - in western part of the region, potatoes, vegetables, tea, citruses in southern foothills, vine-growing and wine-making in Anapa district and Black Sea coast area.

In March 2013 regional Governor Aleksander Tkachev stated about the plans to thresh no less than 11 million tons of grain this year, this figure was increased to 12.1 million tons later. A very early grain harvesting campaign in Krasnodar Territory ended in late July, the harvest exceeded by one third the previous year’s figure reaching 8.2 million tons. The average harvesting rate exceeded 50 hundredweights per hectare. The general grain harvesting rate went up 16 hundredweights per hectare against 2012. The agrarians have threshed 4.5 hundredweights more of barley from each hectare than in the previous years.

These figures became the highest for the last 20 years in the territory that that is particularly important over the destruction of the harvest in the Russian Far East and subsequently a lower forecast for the grain harvest down to 90 million tons in the country as a whole.

The harvest of grain and leguminous crops has been collected from more than 20 million hectares by the third decade of August that is the harvest from 45 percent of croplands. The harvest rate has made about 26 hundredweights per hectare (no less than 20 hundredweights in 2012). About 650,000 hectares of winter crops were planted that is about one third more than at the same period of time in the previous year.

The agrarian records of Kuban are different. For instance, this year local farmer Igor Likhosenko grew water melon with a weight of 64 kilograms that is the largest one in the history of the region. The water melon was already put on display at the museum Ataman on the coast of the Sea of Azov. The same farmer exhibited square water melons at an exhibition two years ago for the first time in Kuban.

Vladimir Putin visits regularly Southern Russia, particularly Krasnodar Territory to resolve agricultural issues. The president had one of the latest major meetings with the agrarians in Rostov-on-Don on August 22. The president focused on the issues of support to the regions, which were hit in natural disasters (fires, drought and floods), the consequences of Russia’s entry in the World Trade Organization for the agrarians, incentives for farming and other types of cooperation in rural districts and development of agricultural machine building. At the post of Russia’s Prime Minister Putin even steered a combine in 2011 in Stavropol. The then Russian president Dmitry Medvedev drove another combine. The two top officials of the country have threshed six tons of corn each.